Foes of Nuclear Dump Gear Up Campaign

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

Published: April 9, 2002

WASHINGTON, April 8—
When a train carrying thousands of gallons of propane gas derailed near here on Sunday, it was not just a local disaster story.

Some of the top lobbyists in Washington immediately went to work, picking up their telephones and strategizing about how the incident could be used to galvanize support for their latest cause: stopping President Bush's recommendation that the nation's nuclear plants send deadly waste to Yucca Mountain, Nev.

The lobbyists hope the wreck will help them persuade Virginia's two Republican senators, John W. Warner and George F. Allen, that transporting hazardous materials by rail and road is dangerous.

As Congress returns from recess this week, the Senate is the focus of an intensifying lobbying campaign over whether the thousands of tons of high-level radioactive waste stored at more than 130 nuclear plants and military sites should be sent to Nevada.

Most of Nevada has been battling the idea for 20 years. In 1982 in a highly unusual nod to a state, Congress gave Nevada the power to veto any presidential decision about Yucca. Today, Gov. Kenny Guinn, a Republican, filed his veto.

His action started the clock for 90 legislative days during which Congress can sustain the veto or override it, with a deadline of July 26. Both sides consider the House solidly behind the administration and say the real battle will be in the Senate.

Mr. Guinn is scheduled to travel to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to present his veto formally.

''The fight is not over; it's just beginning on a national level,'' Mr. Guinn said in an interview, adding that his state intended to spend $10 million to $16 million to fend off Yucca's designation. He will be joined on Capitol Hill by his state's senators, Harry Reid, a Democrat, and John Ensign, a Republican.

Mr. Guinn's trip here opens the national phase of a fight that Nevada, pinpointed years ago as the dump site in part because of its relative lack of population and political influence, has essentially been waging on its own. Now the state and its lobbyists plan to alert the rest of the country by highlighting the dangers of transporting waste.

Nevada has enlisted the services of two ex-chiefs of staff to former presidents -- John Podesta, who served President Bill Clinton, and Kenneth M. Duberstein, who worked for President Ronald Reagan. Nevada tried to enlist several other Republican lobbyists, but was turned down by those who did not want to cross the White House. Mr. Duberstein has long represented the American Gaming Association, which strongly opposes the dump for Yucca, which is 90 miles from Las Vegas.

The campaign plans television and billboard advertising across the country to spur people to put pressure on their senators.

Television commercials are expected to start soon in Vermont, where the don't-dump-in-Nevada team hopes to win the endorsement of Senator James M. Jeffords, an independent. Pro-environmental Republicans in the Northeast will also be targeted, including Senators Olympia J. Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island. But as the frenzy of phone calls after the Virginia accident showed, almost all Republicans are considered fair game.

Still, both sides say the Nevada-led campaign has an uphill climb. The last time the Senate voted on a measure that might reflect Nevada's strength, only 32 Democrats voted with the state against the dump.

On the other side is a powerful lineup: the Bush White House, the nuclear industry, several governors of states that have nuclear plants, the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America and a slew of lobbyists.

''They're running a fear-mongering campaign,'' William L. Kovacs, vice president of environment, technology and regulatory affairs at the Chamber of Commerce said of the dumping opponents.

He said that newspaper editorials were running 6-to-1 in favor of using Yucca Mountain, in part because in the last 40 years, more than 3,000 shipments of spent nuclear fuel had traveled 1.6 million miles in the United States with no radiation-related injuries or deaths.

Governor Guinn bristled at suggestions that his state was not patriotic, saying that Nevada endured years of atom bomb tests. ''We've been patriotic, more so than anyone else,'' said Mr. Guinn. He said that his campaign would focus on Spencer Abraham, the energy secretary, for recommending that President Bush support Yucca rather than on President Bush.

''I love what Bush is doing for America,'' Governor Guinn said, adding that the Yucca decision just happened to occur ''on his watch.''